A Catholic Blog
A priest writing reflections on theology, philosophy, and Catholicism. I'll occasionaly write movie reviews, rants, and discussion topics. I write from my experiences, personal and intellectual, for my benefit and yours (should you get any from it). None of what I write is official or representative of my diocese or parish, just my semi-public attempt at figuring things out and sharing it with you for the sake of dialogue.

Monday, January 21, 2013

What the heck am I working on?

Morning all,

I've been writing for about half a year now, and I appreciate everyone who has followed me since. I encourage you and my old followers to
participate in myposts by posing questions, challenges, or
suggestions to me. I appreciate you all taking the time to read my work
and I hope to make it better for you in the future.

School has
been incredible busy. 17 hours, 9 of which are graduate-level courses,
has put a big strain on my time. Basketball, part-time work, and papers
have all limited me in a significant way. I'm still writing, and
actually have quite a few things half-done.

I've decided to share
some with you. These are half/partially finished and in limbo--whether
it's content, time, or presentation.

1) "Ancient Culture Wasn't Better"

Many
look at ancient cultures as open, accepting, and happy because of how
they viewed sexuality, the body, and how we expressed ourselves. Many of
these people, perhaps unknowingly, are addicted to the power that such
an image of the past creates. Some fail to realize that the ideal we
draw from the past covers a great number of anxieties, abuses, and
simply human tendencies. People look to the ancient conception of eros
and a sort of divine madness as an openness to the pleasures of sex—in
turn they see the Christian response as a altogether Puritan response to
the body. Christians starve the body, the ancients (and now moderns)
nourish it. ...When we look at ancient society we find the
Elysian fields and other afterlife narratives where, in the end, the
strong, the mighty, and the high-born who live up to their nobility are
given eternal delights and remembered forever along with their great
ancestors. Yet those who were among the common-born were by nature at
the service of the strong and, in death, entered the company of the
shades. The virtues that were raised as the human ideal (such as by
Aristotle) were best attained by those who had the money, the health,
and favorable disposition to do so. Those of lesser blood were simply
incapable of attaining perfect virtue, not for a lack of desire but
through a lack of the natural potential.

2) "How Life Collapses Suddenly: A Warning"

No
person is made from a vacuum and no "finished product," the person that
we see, is as stable as he may appear. Even the sturdiest of buildings
have imperfections and decay.

It is perhaps better to see human beings as not a constantly-revised building but as an ongoing construction project.

Though a whole wall may appear sturdy, a single misaligned brick can bring the whole thing down. It may appear inconsequential.

The
shaky structures that we sometimes build in fair weather are considered
"sufficient" precisely because there is no trial, pressure, or
difficulty. But then the rain comes, strong wind blows, hailstones fall,
and all sorts of catastrophes occur. This is when we test the wisdom of
our plans, and the effectiveness of our actions. The same is true of
faith.

3) "Doctrine as Organic"

A note:
doctrine and dogma are words so misused and abused that I feel the need
to work on it. I got through quite a bit here before a nagging doubt in
my mind brought me to ask my priest-professor about it. I'm glad I did,
because I turned out to be completely wrong--not in my content, but in
my angle. I realized I had been speaking about a discipline as if it
were doctrine--a big mistake! But as I researched this topic I noticed
that doctrine was not as clear as I thought the literature would convey.
Then again, this is what we should expect. We receive revelation but we
must still live in the world. We encounter Christ, but we must still
follow Him. While I may have screwed up a lot in a small aspect--which
ruins the whole--what I have can still be salvaged.

By
the 15th and 16th centuries, however, common language had overtaken
much more of public life. Latin remained the uniform academic language
of the day, but as churches grew so did the demand for the vernacular of
the people. As the Protestant Reformation came about, many reformers
demanded that the vernacular be used.

This concern [of the
reformers] was pastoral and 'political.' It was pastoral such that the
reformers wanted to teach Scripture more intimately in the language of
their people. It should be noted numerous personal translations in the
vernacular existed at this time (and beforehand [e.g., Erasmus'
translation]) and were distributed, but an official vernacular was not
published. It was political such that by removing others from Latin it
was also a move to remove people more holistically from the Church. You
can see for yourselves today that Latin is often associated with the
Church. Among Protestants and Catholics alike, Latin is reserved almost
exclusively for academic pursuits, but the official language of
Catholicism still remains Latin and all documents issued from Rome are
in Latin to this day.

This (intellectually) violent rejection of
Latin in turn gave pause to the fathers of the Church. At the Council of
Trent (1545-63) they discussed this at great length. They decided on
something very peculiar. In a climate where every reformer was making
his own translation of the Bible the council decided that it would not
put forth an official translation. Their reason, however, was wiser than
it may appear. They said that in this increasingly polemical and
enflamed climate it would be imprudent to simply rush a translation of
the mass and Scripture into the vernacular. For those of you who
translate anything into another language you realize the difficult
decisions you must make in order to both remain faithful to the original
and present it as readable in the new language. The fathers,
recognizing this, made provisions for official translations to be made
and disseminated but 'not yet.'